Coen Residence
by James Milamber
Summary: What if Billy Coen had followed Rebecca into the Spencer mansion? How would his presence affect the course of events? Rated for language and violence.


Coen Residence

By James Milamber

_A/N: Hello all, and welcome to my attempt at a Resident Evil fic. Having FINALLY managed to get my hands on a copy of RE4 (a thoroughly AWESOME game, I may add…can't wait for RE5…) I started to think – what would happen if Billy had followed Rebecca to the Spencer Mansion? How differently would things turn out? So, I decided to write my version of what might have been. Please bear in mind that this will be fairly heavily AU – all the same characters will be involved, but events will happen VERY differently. Also, I'm using Jill's version of the game, as this means I get to have Barry involved – Rebecca is quite obviously already there, so Chris is currently residing in an Umbrella prison cell. As always, any comments would be appreciated – and please point it out if I make any mistakes. My memory of the Mansion is pretty good, but since I don't have the game to reference off, I'm bound to make a few stuff-ups._

_Also, please note that this is based on the REmake...NOT the original. The original was crap, with shoddy graphics and terrible voice acting.

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From the deep shadows of Racoon Forest, Billy Coen watched Rebecca Chambers carefully open the front doors of the Spencer Mansion. She peered through the small crack, her Beretta at the ready. Apparently deciding it looked safe enough, she pushed the door open the rest of the way and went in, allowing it to swing shut behind her.

Billy sighed heavily, leaning back against the trunk of a nearby tree. He knew he shouldn't still be here – there was a distinct chance he would be caught by the rest of the S.T.A.R.S. team, and he doubted very much Rebecca would be able to get him off the hook. It would also get her into considerable trouble, if they found out she'd disobeyed orders. However, after all they had been through in the last six hours, he found it impossible to walk away. So he had trailed after her as she had made her way down the ridge line towards the mansion where the leader of her team, Enrico she had called him, would be waiting for her. He had to make sure she got out of this nightmare safely – and he wouldn't consider her completely safe until she was well and truly out of this thrice damned forest.

Several times during their trek he had heard gunshots off in the distance – for the most part, the distinctive sound of a S.T.A.R.S. custom Beretta, so very similar to the familiar sounds of Rebecca's own handgun. The young Medic either didn't hear the faint sounds, or chose to ignore them in favour of getting to the mansion as quickly as possible. Billy thought the former was the most likely – his Marine training had included how to tell the difference between friendly and enemy fire from the sound the different weapons made, something he doubted was covered in the training of even an elite police division.

So that still left him with an immediate problem: how the hell he would get inside without Rebecca knowing. The front door was out – far too obvious. He glanced up at the looming form of the mansion and spotted a second floor balcony running along the right hand side, complete with some form of trailing plant growing up a mesh set into the wall.

_Perfect_, he thought as he carefully started circling towards the mesh. A few minutes later he reached it, yanking hard on the bottom to test its strength before he started climbing.

He reached the top in a short time, and swung one leg over the ornate railing – and then froze. Sitting half-slumped over on a nearby bench was a man wearing the distinctive S.T.A.R.S. uniform…and holding a loaded Grenade Launcher, aimed directly at Billy's exposed chest.

'Hey, take it easy,' Billy said softly, slowly climbing over the railing and dropping to the floor. The man eyed him suspiciously, the Grenade Launcher never wavering, even though the man was in obvious pain. The reason for that pain became apparent when he shifted his left hand, which had been clutched to his neck, to reveal a large chunk torn out of his neck – very obviously caused by a zombie. Billy also noticed numerous smaller marks all over his body, eerily similar to those caused by those damnable zombie birds.

'Who the hell are you?' the man demanded in a harsh voice.

'You're injured,' Billy ignored the question.

'No shit,' the man winced in pain. 'Now answer the damn question before I blow your fucking head off! You look familiar, why?'

'My name is Billy.'

'Coen!' The officer tried to stand, but almost collapsed when his legs wouldn't support his weight. The Grenade Launcher dropped from his hands as Billy leapt forward to steady him.

'Careful there,' Billy eased him back up onto the bench. 'I take it you're one of Bravo Team then?'

'How the hell did you know that?' The man looked at him suspiciously.

Since he doubted the man would live much longer without serious medical treatment, and there was only one person in the building capable of giving that treatment, he decided to come clean. 'I spent the last six hours or so in the company of one Rebecca Chambers.'

'Rebecca!' the man tried to sit up again, but grimaced and flopped onto his back again. 'What the hell did you do to her?'

'I didn't do anything to her,' Billy said harshly, annoyed at the man's accusing tone. 'Neither of us would be alive now without the other, so I suggest you shut up about it. We've battled zombies – and worse – just to stay alive, so I think I deserve a _little_ credit!'

The man stared at him for a long moment, and then sighed, wincing again as pain shot through his neck. 'I suppose I don't really have much choice but to trust you on that,' he said weakly, then lifted his hand. 'I'm Forrest, a member of S.T.A.R.S. Bravo Team.'

'So I gathered,' Billy smiled slightly.

'So…erm…where is she?' Forrest looked around a little foolishly, as if expecting Rebecca to suddenly jump out of hiding.

'I saw her go in through the front doors only a minute ago,' Billy answered. 'We separated when we got out of the Training Facility. She was going to come here and find you lot, and I was going to get out of here as fast as I could. I couldn't just leave her to be mauled by some zombie dog, though, so I followed her.'

Forrest's eyes had grown steadily wider as Billy spoke, and when he'd finished the injured officer grabbed the front of Billy's shirt weakly. 'You _have_ to find her, you understand? You can't leave her side. I'm not going to let her die too, got that?'

'Yeah, I got that,' Billy gently disengaged the bloody hand from his shirt. 'I'll go find her and bring her back here…you need medical treatment.'

Forrest laughed hollowly, sinking back to lay fully on the stone bench. 'I'm already dead, I know it. Soon enough I'll be one of _those_,' he spat.

'But what if there's a cure?' Billy thought. 'Maybe –'

'There's no way you'd get it here in time, even if there were,' Forrest shook his head grimly. 'I do have a favour to ask, however.'

'What?' Billy asked warily.

'Shoot me,' Forrest nodded at the handgun tucked into the top of Billy's trousers. 'In the head. It's the only way to stop me from becoming one of them.'

'I can't do that,' Billy shook his head. 'Rebecca would kill me, for one.'

'Just do it, Coen,' Forrest ground out. 'I'd rather be dead than Undead, any day. If you're not man enough to do it, give me the bloody gun and I'll do it myself!'

'Are you sure you want me to do this?' Billy drew his handgun and pressed it to Forrest's forehead. 'There's no coming back from this.'

'I know that,' Forrest gritted his teeth together. 'Just pull the damn trigger already! And tell Becky…tell her I wish it could have been different.'

'So do I,' Billy said softly as he squeezed the trigger. Forrest's body jumped once, and then lay still.

Billy stood for a moment with his head bowed, silently vowing to see Umbrella burned for doing this. These people were just doing their jobs…innocent pawns in Umbrella's grand scheme, and for what? Money, and power.

Billy sighed and turned to leave, retrieving the downed officer's Grenade Launcher from where it had fallen to the floor. He hesitated a moment, but decided searching the body might be necessary for survival. In a pouch at Forrest's waist he found a half-full box of 9mm parabellum rounds, which would fit both his and Rebecca's pistols. He also found several shotgun shells in a different pouch – useless to him, as he'd given Rebecca the shotgun they'd carried before leaving her. After completing his search, Billy flicked out the revolver-style chamber on the Launcher – it was fitted with five standard grenade rounds, with one of the chambers empty.

'Better than nothing,' Billy muttered to himself, pocketing the ammo and shells and readying the Launcher, which he slung over his shoulder by a strap extending from the barrel to the stock. Thus armed, he made his way along the balcony. As one direction proved to be a dead end, he headed in the opposite direction, and was rewarded with a sight of a door that obviously led to the interior.

He tried the handle, and was annoyed to find it locked.

'Doesn't anyone ever leave doors unlocked anymore?' he muttered to himself, taking aim at the locking mechanism with his pistol – he'd be damned if he was going to let a stupid lock keep him from finding Rebecca. Two shots later and he carefully pushed the door open, mindful that literally anything could await him on the other side.

Seeing that the immediate coast was clear, he entered the room beyond the door – which proved to be not a room at all, but a large Entrance Hall. He stood on the second floor, where a balcony ran the circumference of the room. At the far end was a large staircase that allowed access to the lower floor. Glancing down, he was disappointed to note that Rebecca was no longer present, although he could see the front doors she had entered through.

'Now,' he muttered to himself as he wandered down the balcony towards the stairs, 'where would you have gone from here, hmm?' He glanced down at the bottom floor and saw three doors leading off the Hall. On the second floor there were four – the one he had just come through, one opposite it which presumably led to a matching external balcony, and two others.

'May as well try the ground floor first,' Billy shrugged. 'He made his way down the rather ornate staircase, glancing both directions as he did so. To his left there were two doors, one of which was locked with an odd style of bullet-proof lock with a picture of a Helmet on it that resisted all his attempts to open.

'Bloody paranoid,' he shook his head. Still, if the lock was intact that meant Rebecca had taken one of the other two doors. The door right next to the locked one led to an art room of sorts. Billy glanced around the room before softly closing the door again – he didn't think that was right, for some reason.

'Oh well…looks like door number three, then.' He crossed the hall and grasped the handle of the final door firmly in his left hand, drawing his handgun with his right. He flung the door open, careful not to let it hit the wall, and near leapt into the room beyond, his eyes everywhere as he took in the scene.

It was a Dining Hall, and it was silent except for a very loud ticking from a grandfather clock along one wall. A massive table ran the length of the room, and at the far end was a fireplace. The whole room was decorated with fair taste, although he thought the picture of the knights killing each other was a bit overdone.

Spotting a room at the far end of the Hall, he made for it. The door creaked slightly as he carefully opened it. It led to a dimly lit corridor that stretched a short distance to the left, where it opened up into a small sitting area, and further to the right. He opened the door fully and was surprised to come face to face with a zombie that had obviously been standing just behind it.

Billy barely had time to duck out of the way as the reanimated corpse lurched forwards to grab him. He came to his feet a short distance away, raising his handgun and firing off three rounds. The first two impacted into the zombie's chest, but the third took it in the forehead. It stumbled back a few steps then fell to the floor with a dull thump.

Billy stepped forward slowly, prodding the corpse in the side to make sure it was really dead – he'd been caught out far too often by apparently dead zombies trying to take a bite out of his ankle as he walked past. Satisfied it was really dead, he stooped to retrieve the Grenade Launcher and turned to survey the hallway a little better.

On his immediate left was a door, which he found to be locked. The sitting area contained the corpse of a S.T.A.R.S. officer – Billy didn't want to get too close to him, as from the looks of things, he'd been killed by a zombie. The opposite end of the hallway proved to lead down a short flight of steps, to what appeared to be a kitchen – this door was also locked. A second door not far from the first proved to be locked as well.

'Not much of an option, then,' Billy muttered to himself as he retraced his steps to the sitting room, carefully stepping over the body, and through the only unlocked door. It opened into a wide, 'L' shaped corridor that turned into a smallish room with a set of steps leading upwards. The room also contained another zombie, which he took down with a single, clean shot to the head. The zombie moaned and stepped backwards, colliding with the wall. It slid down and stopped in an awkward position, slumped against the wall.

Billy took the only new route that had been opened to him – up the stairs. The door at the top opened near silently, and he found himself in an oddly shaped corridor with mirrors at each corner. The first thing he spotted when he turned the first corner was yet another zombie – he took it down, and the gunfire drew another, which joined it's companion on the floor in a pool of blood. He walked to the next corner and peeked around it, finding a long-ish stretch with odd armour and such spread down its length. Deciding that probably wasn't the right way, he turned instead to a door on his right, finding it – surprise surprise – locked. It a fit of irritation he raised his leg and planted his boot firmly just above the door handle. There was a satisfying _crack_ as the doorframe splintered, and two kicks later the door swung open, revealing yet another corridor. He took down the lone zombie he found there, reloading his handgun with practiced ease for a final shot. In this new corridor, he found another locked door with that strange Helmet design on the lock, and a set of stairs leading down. He could hear faint sounds coming from down below, although from this distance he couldn't tell if they were zombie or human.

_Oh well, I've dealt with zombies before_, he thought, shrugging. His handgun at the ready, he descended the stairs, wincing as they creaked alarmingly. The sounds stopped immediately – which reinforced the impression they were human. The question was, _which_ human?

He came to the bottom of the stairs, and found a door directly to his right. A corpse lay on the floor by the door – a corpse that looked distinctly zombie like, with a neat bullet hole through its forehead. Just beyond the body, set in the wall that ran parallel to the stairs, was another door – only this one was slightly ajar.

Billy crept forward as quietly as he could, wincing as his boots came down on broken shards of glass. He lifted his left arm and slowly edged the door open, his right arm resting atop his left so he maintained a clear shot with the pistol in his right hand. As the door opened wider, he caught a brief glimpse of shelves full of what looked like medicine bottles before a hand shot from the shadows behind the door and came crashing down on his right arm. The blow was expertly aimed – he immediately felt his arm going numb, and his pistol slid from his suddenly nerveless fingers. Billy stumbled backwards with a small cry of pain, colliding with the wall behind him as the door was wrenched open and a woman with short brown hair and wearing a S.T.A.R.S. uniform emerged, Billy's pistol held in a firm grip.

'Who the hell are you?' the woman asked, tilting her head slightly as she took in his appearance. He was aware he wasn't exactly looking his best – his clothes were covered in the gore of assorted bioweapons he and Rebecca had dispatched, and his left arm was bandaged where a Hunter had gotten a lucky swipe. He was, however, grateful the handcuffs were gone. They might have been a bit of a giveaway.

'Does it really matter?' Billy answered, slowly extending his hands in a gesture of peace. 'I'm stuck in this nightmare same as you. I think identities are irrelevant at this point.'

'True,' the woman nodded slowly. She gazed at him thoughtfully for a moment, then, apparently deciding to trust him, flipped his gun over in her hand and offered it to him. 'Jill Valentine, S.T.A.R.S. Alpha Team.'

'Billy Coen.' The Ex-Marine gratefully accepted his pistol back.

'Do you know anything about what's happening in this mansion?' Jill asked.

'Umbrella,' Billy said shortly. Now that he knew Rebecca wasn't here, he was eager to get moving again and find her.

'Umbrella?' Jill's forehead creased in thought. 'You mean the big pharmaceuticals company?'

'Got it in one.' Billy walked to the corner and glanced around it, seeing nothing but an empty corridor that made a turn to the right after about fifteen feet. 'They're into some pretty twisted experiments,' he continued, glancing over his shoulder at the brunette woman, then looking pointedly at the deceased zombie on the floor.

'I don't suppose you have any proof of that,' Jill asked hopefully as she followed Billy around the corner and down the hallway.

'I don't. Rebecca does.' Billy carefully stepped around the glass shards on the floor, idly wondering what had broken the windows that lined the corridor. 'Rebecca? You don't mean Rebecca Chambers, do you?'

'Yes,' Billy said as he reached the next corner. Glancing around it, he saw the corridor ended in a doorway, with a second door on the right. 'I'm looking for her now, I know she's in this mansion somewhere.'

'Well, we might as well stick together,' Jill said, glancing around at the smears of blood on the various surfaces in the hallway. 'You obviously know how to handle yourself in a fight, and two guns are better than one.'

'Whatever,' Billy shrugged. 'So long as you don't get in my way, I don't care if you tag along.'

'Tag along?' Jill raised an eyebrow as Billy moved to the door at the end of the corridor and made to open it.

Billy motioned her to silence. Through the thin wooden panels of the door, he could faintly hear dragging footsteps in the room beyond. By his count, there were two zombies. 'I'll take the left, you take the right,' he whispered. Jill nodded and took up a position on the right hand side of the door frame, nodding again when she was ready.

Billy held up his left hand, three fingers extended, and began a silent countdown. As he lowered the last finger, he dropped his hand to the doorknob and twisted, throwing the door open.

An Army issue 9mm and S.T.A.R.S. custom Beretta rang out simultaneously – and two zombies dropped to the ground, both with bullet holes in their foreheads.

'Nice shot,' Billy complimented Jill who, due to the door hinging on her side, had a more difficult shot.

'Not so bad yourself,' she graced him with a smile. 'I see you've done this sort of thing before.'

'A few times,' he admitted.

Jill looked at him speculatively, but said nothing. She glanced around the room they had entered, which turned out to be not a room at all, but an oddly elongated L-shaped hallway. Down to their left were several intact windows which, she noticed with a small shudder, had zombies banging on them from outside, trying to get in.

'I think we should leave,' she said, pointing to the shadows the zombies were casting on the wall. Billy grunted and they headed off down the other side of the L-shape, Billy in front and Jill trailing along behind. After a short distance they found a short corridor leading off to the left and a single, tiny room, which contained an odd statue. Opposite the corridor was a bedroom of sorts – judging from a journal Jill found on the desk, it's previous occupant had been zombified.

'This mentions some labs beneath the mansion,' she frowned, flipping through the pages.

'Would be consistent,' Billy said, carefully poking through some of the clothes strewn about the room, looking for anything useful. 'You wouldn't believe some of the things Rebecca and I found under that bloody Training Facility.' His search proved a success when he found a 9mm clip in a jacket pocket. He glanced at Jill. 'How much ammo have you got on you?'

'Enough,' she shrugged, slipping the journal into a pocket in her vest. 'Come on, let's get moving.'

She made to walk around the bed that occupied the middle of the room, to where Billy was waiting by the door, but as she passed a closet the doors sprang open and a zombie fell heavily into Jill, knocking her to the ground. Her gun skittered out of reach as she fought to keep the thing from taking a bite out of her neck.

'Billy! Shoot this damn thing!'

'Hold still, damn it!' he said harshly. He aimed his pistol, trying in vain to get a clean shot, but the zombie was thrashing around too much. 'Screw this,' he muttered, vaulting over the bed and booting the zombie in the shoulder. It rolled awkwardly away from Jill, who took the opportunity to scramble to her feet. As the zombie turned its rotting face to Billy, the ex-Marine raised his foot and brought it smashing down on the zombie's skull. The thick bone caved easily beneath his boot, a thick mass of rotting brain material spilling out onto the floor. The zombie stilled instantly.

'Thanks,' Jill said a bit breathlessly.

'Don't mention it,' Billy picked up her gun and handed it to her. 'Come on, let's get out of here. This place stinks.'

They left the room quickly and turned right down the corridor, coming to a locked door. Jill twisted the locking bolt and swung the door open, and the two glanced through.

'This looks familiar,' Billy said, stepping fully through the door. Sure enough, not five feet away was the zombie that had jumped him as he'd left the dining room.

'Friend of yours?' Jill asked dryly.

'You might say that.' Billy glanced both ways down the corridor. 'Which way now?'

'There's a locked door I found earlier, off the Main Hall,' Jill answered, crossing the corridor and opening the door to the Dining Room. 'I found a key that let me get into that area back there, and I think it should open the other door too.' From a pouch on her belt she withdrew a silver key with a Sword design on it and held it up.

'Alright,' Billy nodded. 'It's as good a place as any, I suppose.' They headed through the Dining Hall and back into the Main Hall, then crossed to the Art Room Billy had found earlier. On the other side of the room was a door with a Sword engraved in the lock. Jill inserted the key and turned, and was rewarded with a loud 'click'. The two glanced at each other, and with a deep breath, Jill turned the handle and pushed the door open.

_A/N: Well, there you have it. Please bear in mind that I'm working entirely from memory – I'm trying to give you a good idea of exactly where in the Mansion everything is happening. Let me know what you think so far – is this worth continuing?_


End file.
